Thank you all for the sweet and encouraging comments! Hope you enjoy Chapter 2.
Chapter 2-Frostbitten
I hurriedly plug in the crockpot and brush my hands on my jeans before heading back outside. I throw my gloves on long enough to grab several grocery bags from the vehicle before heading back into the cabin. The snow is falling harder than it did even twenty minutes ago. Behind me, Maddie and Deacon carry in the 80 gallon cooler. Daphne brings in two more bags after them. Like clockwork, the four of us go back out to the SUV again. This time Maddie and I each bring in a laundry basket full of clothes followed by Deacon who has his guitar case in one hand and my big suitcase in the other. Daphne follows behind with her suitcase and her book bag.
The next trip is more tiring. The snow is thick now as it falls down from the sky. My foot sticks in the powder on the ground several times and at Daphne almost trips twice on her way back in. Deacon and I each carry in another suitcase, Maddie brings in another basket of linens. This time, the girls and Deacon head back out but I stay in.
I strip off my coat, gloves, and scarf. I do a mental checklist before deciding to unpack the cooler first. I put the milk, eggs, bacon, butter, chicken, and steaks in the fridge. Next I grab the pyrex dish that I've already put the ingredients in for breakfast casserole. I unload the grocery bags: cake mix, potatoes, half a dozen cans of soup, several boxes of rice, and hamburger buns.
I hear the door open and look back to see Deacon carrying a large bundle of firewood. Maddie's on his heels carrying a few logs. A second later Daphne appears holding half a log and a smile of accomplishment. They all drop their load beside the fireplace before heading back out for another trip.
It is the first weekend in March and I can't believe how awful this winter has been. Nashville has been hit three times with snow and ice storms already. The girls have missed over two weeks of school already because of the earlier storms. According to the weathermen, this storm tonight may top them all; at last count, they were predicting eighteen inches. The one in mid-January left them without power for almost three days, Lord knows how long this one will impact the area.
I'm officially on hiatus from my tour until April. Deacon's first single cracked the top 30 a few weeks ago. But with the weather the way it has been, he's been forced to do most of his publicity via call-in interviews and satellites. Still, he can't go on tour due to his contract with Luke. Of course, Luke doesn't want Deacon on tour with him either, so Deacon is basically paid to stay home. His label is hopeful that Deacon's CD will go gold before the summer. While my guy pretends he only cares that people like his music, it's obviously how excited he is about the possibility of selling a hundred thousand records.
The girl's school decided to prematurely cancel school for tomorrow and Friday. Then this plan kind of fell into place. The cabin had a generator and was really only a thirty minute drive from the outskirts of Nashville. So the four of us rushed to pack every jacket, glove, and slab of perishable food in the house and got in the 4 drive wheel drive vehicle.
I look outside and estimate another inch of snow has fallen outside. Just then Deacon and the girls come in with more firewood. This time Deacon declares that they are staying inside. Daphne visibly shivers as she and Maddie began to take off their top layers. Deacon shakes his head free of ice before he leans down and starts messing in the hearth.
Soon, both girls are upstairs making their bed and unpacking while Deacon and I do the same in our room. Deacon admits he caught me looking at his ass while he was starting the fire.
"You do have a cute one," I admit while we tuck the corners of the fitted sheet onto the bed.
Somehow we end up on the bed instead of the comforter. With the girls bound to come down the stairs at any moment, it isn't like this is leading to anything. But it is nice to be able to make out with him anytime I want. As Deacon's hand grabs my ass, I pull back realizing how close we are to scaring the girls for life.
I push myself off the bed, waiting for the groan that I know is coming from Deacon. But he knows we have to stop too. Hell, Deacon is terrified one of the girls will walk in on us. Lately, we've had sex in the shower a lot. Deacon figures the water muffles any sounds we make and the girls are less likely to walk into the bathroom the way they walk into the bedroom.
In fact, when the girls are staying with us we've basically been having sex everywhere but in our bedroom: the SUV, Deacon's truck, the pool house, the laundry room with the driers on.
The only thing I actually like about the girls staying with Teddy is being able to make love to Deacon in a bed. I smile at that thought as I head into the kitchen. The crock pot is steaming and the chicken and dumplings smell delicious if I do say so myself. Deacon grabs a can of corn and dumps it into a pot before turning on the stove.
We share a small smile. It's an understanding of how much even the mundane things like getting dinner together mean to us. When Deacon was in rehab the first few times, I missed him like crazy. It wasn't just the actual time in rehab, before each of those trips the real Deacon had already been gone for a while. All I wanted to do was have him kiss me again without the smell of Jack Daniels on his breath, to have him look me in the eye with those clear bright eyes staring back at me. Those times were awful but necessary for him, for us.
When I married Teddy, I knew I would miss kissing Deacon and making love to that man. I knew I'd miss writing songs. I would miss having my best friend around all the time. But I never realized how much I'd miss this kind of stuff, the mundane stuff as Deacon calls it. I had no clue that I'd long to make dinner with him or clean the house with him. But God I did miss it. And now I've gotten it all back.
Deacon pulls out a gallon of sweet tea that I made a few hours ago then goes to set out the table. The snow is still falling outside. There has to be nine, maybe ten inches of snow on the ground. I hear the girls laughing upstairs and can't help but smile again.
~/~/~
Two days into our "Snow-cation" as we've started to call it and I wouldn't mind if the roads didn't clear for another two weeks. Yesterday morning we made pancakes and watched the last of the snow fall from the living room windows. Then we all bundled up and walked nearly a mile in the snow to the hill near the main road. The four of spent almost two hours outside sledding and falling down the hill. Deacon and I lost terribly to Maddie and Daphne in a snow ball on the way home. Then after long naps, we spent the night huddled up by the fireplace singing songs and going through a couple of photo albums the girls found upstairs. The girls asked a million questions: Why was my hair that big? Why was Deacon's hair that big? Why did the bus look so beat up? What is a Farmer's Day Parade?
The girls started yawning around ten, still tired from the day's activities. I smile remembering that Deacon and I didn't get to bed until around midnight. Of course, Deacon made me go trapesing to the damn SUV just so "the girls wouldn't hear anything." I blush slightly remembering how he made it up to me with the country radio on and the heat blaring through the vents.
Today, Daphne and Deacon head outside to build a snowman. Maddie and I decide to stay inside in the warm. She's got a book to read for her English before next week and I just want to stay in my pajamas. For a while, I sip my coffee and watch as Deacon and Daphne's middle layer falls apart. Maddie gets my attention when she asks about the Eternity sign above the door. She apparently caught Deacon and I looking at it last night. I tell her about the old country store with homemade signs somewhere in Kentucky. Deacon and I had been on a fifteen city tour, small clubs and venues, when the bus broke down near that store. I leave that we bought three signs originally. The other two said "Forever &" "Ever &". They were a set of three and cost $30 total.
Back then, Deacon and I spent twenty three hours a day together. It was just the two of us and the music. It was that all-consuming stuff of first loves and teenage years and those signs spoke to me. I placed them on the side of the bed on that old bus for the rest of the tour. Then, we hung them over the kitchen cabinets in our first apartment. We put them in the hallway in that house of McDonald Ave. That was where Deacon ruined the first two signs after too much Jim Beam. But the third sign was still intact when Deacon bought the cabin. It was the first thing we put up in the cabin, the day after I performed for my very first CMA awards. In the ensuing twenty years, that Eternity sign has hung in the same place.
Maddie asks if I loved Deacon even while I was married to, "my other dad."
Even during the years when I was married to Teddy, the Eternity sign stayed up. It was Deacon's unspoken vow that he'd love me forever. I should have asked him to take it down back then, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted him to love me until eternity, I knew I would love him at least that long, so it only seemed fair.
I think long and hard, trying to figure out exactly how to explain myself. The best thing I can say is "yes, but you know I loved him in a different way."
Maddie nods, seemingly satisfied with my answer. She may still be a teenager but she has already experienced how complicate life can be. She loves Deacon and Teddy too. She asks if I'm happy. I nod, admitting that I hope she's happy too. Maddie gives me a serious look and seems to think about her own answer.
Maddie admits that she is really happy that Deacon and I are together but wishes I would have said yes to Deacon's proposal instead of Luke's. It certainly would have saved everyone a lot of heartache. I whisper "me too" before we change topics.
Maddie and I start to talk about her formal dance. It is a boy-girl dance, the week after next. Maddie tells me about Nathan Bright. They have Spanish and Science together. He's cute and a baseball player. They have been passing notes back and forth and Nathan said she was pretty last week. He sent her a text message, asking her to the dance last night. We decide to go dress shopping once the snow melts. It makes my heart hurt a little, Maddie is nearly grown. I tell her about my first date. I can't even remember his last name now but he was so dreamy back then. Daddy not liking him was a huge plus as well. Sure, he ended up being a bad kisser and was kind of dumb but still my ninth grade-self thought he was just perfect.
We laugh over nothing at all as Maddie and I try out hairstyles for her dance.
Deacon and Daphne wonder in around lunchtime and grab some sandwiches. The four of us end up playing some new form of Pictionary. Deacon and I are on teams during the first round and do fairly well. Then Maddie and Daphne decide they want to go sledding some more. The adults decide to say inside. I have a couples of hours' worth of paperwork for Highway 65. Deacon says he wants to stay around the house, whatever that means.
I spend the next few hours on the phone with Bucky and reading over never ending contracts dealing with Sadie being an opening act this summer.
When I'm done, I find Deacon with a tape measure in one hand and a notebook in the other. I ask him what he's doing but he just shushes me for a minute while he figures out something.
After a few moments of silence, Deacon announces that "it can work."
"What can work?"
Deacon lays down his tape measure and pen and asks what I would think about remodeling the cabin. I raise an eyebrow while Deacon expands on his idea. He suggests we could add another six hundred square feet to add a third bedroom and another bathroom.
I raise an eyebrow thinking of all the time and money this was going to cost but Deacon keeps going. He talks about building the porch that we used to imagine: one with sturdier wood and a big swing pointed towards the water. Deacon talks about a screened in part too, right off the kitchen with outdoor furniture to spend summer nights on. It all sounds like a lovely idea, one that Deacon just throws out there. But then he starts quoting tax write offs for the studio and how much energy efficient windows are. He really has thought about this and being doing research on this. It surprises me because Deacon has never talked about remodeling or redoing anything in the cabin before. He's always liked the cabin just the way it was.
Later that night, as we are lay on the couch, the conversation goes back to remodeling the cabin. He encourages me imagine growing old out here in the middle of nowhere.
Right now, we've been staying at the house Teddy and I bought together. It makes sense: the girls consider it home, it is less than four miles to the girls' school, and there is plenty of space. Deacon isn't crazy about the house, or its location or its former tenant. But it does make sense, at least during the school year.
Truth is, Maddie's in high school now and Daphne will be starting middle school next year. It makes my heart hurt to think that in a few short years, I'm going to be an empty nester and there is no way Deacon is going to be okay living in a mansion the rest of our lives. I feel almost giddy at the idea that we are back here again, back in the cabin, back to planning our future, to knowing that we are in it for the long haul.
I decide to indulge Deacon's imagination. I joke that we should build a small studio too. We could record songs in our pajamas without ever leaving our house. Deacon's eyes light up and I realize he thinks I'm serious. It would cost at least $30,000 to get something even remotely decent and that would be just for the studio. Deacon admits renovations would be expensive but nothing we couldn't deal with. He tells me that he's been thinking about selling his Nashville home. Scarlett has been staying with Gunnar more and more and Deacon has practically abandoned the place. It would certainly open up the cash flow but this all seems so sudden.
"Just think about it," Deacon encourages before kissing me. I mumble an "okay" before deepening the kiss.